


The English Muffin Realization

by Jairissa



Category: How I Met Your Mother
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-04
Updated: 2014-07-04
Packaged: 2018-02-07 09:31:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1894002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jairissa/pseuds/Jairissa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your mother's rendition of "Memories" as performed by an English muffin is, to this day, the most hauntingly beautiful thing I've ever heard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The English Muffin Realization

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Azar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azar/gifts).



Ted had more than his fair share of good sex. One couldn't be friends with Barney for a decade without absorbing some of his intimacy pro-tips, however much they tried to wash out the information with fun life facts and internet cat pictures. He'd thought he'd known just how good it could get, and face it: sex with a new partner was always going to be a little awkward until they learned enough about each other and got over all those weird quirks that had been trained into them by previous partners.

He'd also had his fair share of bad sex. One couldn't be friends with Barney for a decade without absorbing some of his intimacy pro-tips, and if Barney had actually tested out some of those, he'd washed his own brain of so many of those 200 women it wasn't funny. 

Sometimes people just didn't fit. Flashbacks of Naomi still made Ted shudder.

This, though. This had been mind-blowingly awesome and terribly hilarious all at the same time. They were both so obviously trained to the preferences of someone else. He had had a curtain of brown hair hanging over him and he saw Robin's face, and her "ticklish" knee. He was fairly sure that Tracy had called him Max at one point, even though her ex-boyfriend was called Louis and if Barney had known where Ted's thoughts had gone, he would psychically eviscerate him. Or physically. He doubted Barney would be particular.

They'd _laughed_ at it all. Ted had never really laughed through sex before, and he'd never thought he'd wanted to; the whole thing was too serious and too important for that. He'd expected that sex with his soulmate would be the most important yet: a deep, almost spiritual connection that left both of them climaxing together in one single perfect moment. 

Maybe it still would be. Tracy was amazing, and their connection was effortless. This was, to Ted's continuing shame, something that he had felt more than once before. He fell in love too easily, he knew, and was much too inclined to believe that chemistry meant something more.

He forced his eyes open and stretched, peeking at the clock by her bed. Early enough that he could sneak out and skulk to the kitchen, check out if there was enough food to make her breakfast in bed. A small celebration of their first night together, and how conflictingly enjoyable it had been. 

Of course breakfast in bed would necessitate her actually being in bed. Which, Ted discovered as he reached out to brush her hand with his own, she wasn't. So last night hadn't been perfect, but he'd also been fairly sure that she'd at least enjoyed herself. Sneaking out, from her own bed no less, was a tad much. Where was she going to go? He hoped she didn't plan to hide out in the bathroom until he left; he would definitely need to go sometime during the breakfast process. 

That reminded him. He should tell her about that time…

Right. Focus.

Hauling tired muscles upright, Ted groaned a little. He didn't necessarily feel old, but damned if it wasn't getting that little bit harder to make the late night thing work. He was tempted to go back to bed until she reappeared and forced him out, but playing that game…it was too Barney, and Tracy was just so much better than that. 

He vaguely remembered which of the doors led to the kitchen and which of them to the fire escape, with its self-locking doors. That had been a story worth hearing, he chuckled to himself. She wasn't _quite_ the story teller he fancied himself, but he loved how animated she would get while she spoke, half telling the story, half acting out everyone's expressions and voices while Ted watched and felt again that ache of new love beating in his chest. 

"Oh, hey!" She said, somehow smiling and grimacing at the same time. "I was going to make you breakfast in bed. I hope I didn't wake you."

"I was planning the same thing," Ted grinned back. It was easy enough to cross the small kitchen to hug her; easier still to place a kiss on her temple while she caught an English muffin as it popped out of the toaster. That was one of his favourite things about Tracy so far: she was ridiculously kissable.

"Go," she shooed him. "Go sit down."

"I can't sneak in and finish it for you?" Ted smiled charmingly at her. She shook her head, laughing.

"Nope. Person who gets up first gets the breakfast. That's the rule."

"I've never heard that one before," Ted mused, settling on to one of her ridiculously uncomfortable bar stools. Her obsession with buying all of her furniture second hand, and through thrift-stores, was charming. The physical effects were less so.

"There's a lot of rules you haven't heard of," she told him sternly, plonking down a muffin in front of him. She'd already set the breakfast bar with more condiments than Ted knew existed. He preferred his muffins plain, but after all the trouble he'd gone to, he wasn't sure he wanted to disappoint her. Especially since she seemed to be waiting for him to choose, looking at him with that curious tilted head that was so cute he had to kiss her again before he could do anything. "Like that one about waiting four days before calling."

"Three," Ted wrinkled his nose at her. "And about that…"

"Oh, so that was a lie, then," Tracy said, and Ted shrugged his shoulders shamelessly.

"A stretching of the truth?" Ted tried, slathering butter on his muffin and hesitating. He watched her out of the corner of his eye, waiting to see what Tracy chose, but she seemed as intent as him on waffling - hah! He'd have to tell her that one - with her breakfast. She dithered over one jam then another, occasionally looking quickly at him, then away. 

"I see how it is," she agreed, then paused. Ted waited, three long heartbeats, before rushing to fill in the silence.

"Sorry, I just wanted to see what you were-" they both said at once. Then she laughed, and Ted giggled along with her; it was a more little ridiculous. He could take note of her breakfast preferences and eat easily enough. So he settled for his butter muffin, and she covered hers with strawberry jam, and just like that he knew one more thing: how she ate her muffins.

It seemed vitally important, somehow, to know those things. 

He was so busy being relieved that they could eat that he didn't notice at first, how she wasn't eating hers. She was just playing with it, opening it up and down like a little mouth that was trying to say something. He wanted to comment on it, make a little joke, but Tracy had tensed up and Ted didn't want to say the wrong thing and ruin the fine balance of fun and fear they'd been teetering on.

Then she sang.

It was Memories. He must have heard this song a hundred times, but never from an English muffin and never…

He had to put his breakfast down, because holding his hand over his heart seemed to be the only thing that kept it beating in his chest. He teared up, which was ridiculous, but that song, as sung by an English muffin, was just the most hauntingly beautiful thing he thought he had ever heard. He was spellbound, from the first word to the last.

She didn't look at him, at first, an embarrassed little smile on her face. Then it cracked a little, and there were tears in her eyes too, though Ted doubted it was for the same reason as his own.

"Sorry," she muttered, laying the top of her muffin carefully on the bottom so they lined up perfectly. "It's just this thing I do sometimes."

Ted didn't speak. He couldn't speak, not with the fullness in his chest and the tears in his eyes, so he waited until she looked at him, confused and a little hurt. He tapped at his heart and smiled, so impossibly charmed.

"Wow," was all that came out, but apparently that was the right thing because Tracy tackled him nearly off his chair and hugged him until he couldn't breathe for an entirely different reason. He held her until he could kiss her again, until she stopped crying and he stopped feeling as though he wanted to snatch that muffin off her plate and preserve it behind glass for all eternity. 

It was then, though, he knew. That the sex had been more mind-blowing than awful, and that this woman…

She could be it. Not in the way so many others had been, where Ted had tried too hard, or not enough, or the right amount in the wrong way. She could be it in a way where he might not have to try at all. Instead of pushing forward it could be more like letting go. It where he wasn't trying to fit some mould or some pre-planned idea of destiny; where he could just be Ted. She could just be Tracy. 

"I'm not sure I can let you eat that muffin," he told her, half-seriously, when they were straightened out and back on their respective stools.

"Afraid you're going to hurt its feelings?" She teased.

"It's cold," Ted deadpanned, and Tracy snorted, tossing one of her crumbs into his hair. Ted didn't brush it away, straightening up with as much dignity has he possessed. "It has such a beautiful voice."

She got what he meant anyway. Somehow that didn't surprise him.


End file.
